Where to go with the Lily Gauge

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Originally Posted by Manuka

Also, they really should split Assize in two. Make it a flat 400pot attack that grants a 20sec buff that allows you to do a second 'Encore Assize' that heals for 400pot. Gives you a window to actually use the healing portion without relying on lucky mechanic overlaps.

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I'd give it 2 charges and make it an instant GCD personally. Gives you both weave windows and lets you hold a charge for healing.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Does sound nicely button-efficient, but the action to upgrade the following heal (old Dark Arts style, almost) to an instant cast Afflatus equivalent would have to have no player animation, else it'd need a weave space just to give a weave space.

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No need for an action to upgrade, just have it behave similarly to how Play autoswaps to whatever card is drawn. So when you generate a lily your GCDs automatically swap to their afflatus counterpart until you expire all your lilies. I guess you could argue that having a separate upgrade button would be better so the player has more control over the choice to use a base heal or afflatus heal, but realistically this system would be no different than the way we use the current system. So basically you would never really want to touch your base heals unless they are afflatus heals like now, only difference is you wont be forced to use them as a last resort/movement tool/downtime dump and you can actively plan them out for movement/ healing/ weaving, especially since you'll technically have two lily dumps in the form of afflatus regen/med2.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I'd give it 2 charges and make it an instant GCD personally. Gives you both weave windows and lets you hold a charge for healing.

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That would work too, if not better since it technically means you can hold a charge to the 1minute buff windows without suffering a major loss. The problem is a I feel the healing part would still go unused, as the optimal thing in that situation would be to burn them all at the start, hold assize 15secs to the 1 minute mark and in 4 minutes have a 'mini burst' where you burn two stacks again because of the CD carryover, repeat till boss dead. Same problems as current Assize but at least comes with an added layer of optimization besides hit-it-and-forget-it, which I'd be fine with honestly.

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Originally Posted by Manuka

No need for an action to upgrade, just have it behave similarly to how Play autoswaps to whatever card is drawn. So when you generate a lily your GCDs automatically swap to their afflatus counterpart until you expire all your lilies.

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...That would make it impossible to bank the Lily for when it's actually needed. And yes, that lack of control would make a difference, as so much of Lilies' value is in giving opportunities for weaving or mobility.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

...That would make it impossible to bank the Lily for when it's actually needed. And yes, that lack of control would make a difference, as so much of Lilies' value is in giving opportunities for weaving or mobility.

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Is it necessary to bank lilies? Post-prog you're normally sitting on 3 and over capping them anyways, occasionally you'll be forced to burn them to meet movement/healing requirements but that wouldn't change at all from what I described since you don't GCD heal anyways outside downtime, unless something goes horribly wrong in which case your run is over anyways. The only difference between the two really is that when sitting on three lilies and you're about to generate a fourth you can just throw out an afflatus regen to keep from over capping. During prog/re-clears I could see the purpose, but even then I would normally prioritize afflatus heals before touching a GCD one, so adding a lily trigger seems redundant, unless I'm overlooking something. Also keep in mind with the Glare proc you'll effectively be generating a lily roughly every ~22secs if you're consistently casting, which means its unlikely you'll be desperate for more in most normal circumstances.

Plus, not gonna lie using lilies for movement purposes only is pretty questionable design on their part. Just give us MNK's six-sided star on a 30sec CD, it's not like they're using it lol

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Originally Posted by Manuka

Is it necessary to bank lilies? Post-prog you're normally sitting on 3 and over capping them anyways, occasionally you'll be forced to burn them to meet movement/healing requirements but that wouldn't change at all from what I described since you don't GCD heal anyways outside downtime, unless something goes horribly wrong in which case your run is over anyways.

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Necessary for healing? No. Necessary for optimizing uptime? Yes. As you've already noted:

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occasionally you'll be forced to burn them to meet movement/healing requirements

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Though, I'd offer that your 45s Assize weaves play a larger part in this than the healing requirements, so long as you don't have an overeager cohealer sniping each opportunity to spend Lilies without overhealing, and would therefore swap this to "movement/weave requirements".

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unless something goes horribly wrong in which case your run is over anyways.

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Having to GCD heal outside of a boss's jump period does not mark a failed run. It's not even that infrequently required in Savage.

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which means its unlikely you'll be desperate for more in most normal circumstances.

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That has never been my concern. My only concern has always been, again, choice in timing.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

..That has never been my concern. My only concern has always been, again, choice in timing.

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Ah I see, I think I get where you are coming from now. I guess in that case maybe bring back the old cleric stance and retrofit it for afflatus skill usage? You would still need to plan a weave slot to go into it, but at least once you're in you can choose when to leave and go back to basic heals at no weave cost. Sort of a best of both worlds solution.

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Originally Posted by Manuka

Ah I see, I think I get where you are coming from now. I guess in that case maybe bring back the old cleric stance and retrofit it for afflatus skill usage? You would still need to plan a weave slot to go into it, but at least once you're in you can choose when to leave and go back to basic heals at no weave cost. Sort of a best of both worlds solution.

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Not quite. Anything at all like the old CS would be far from a best of both world solution. It'd be nearer to the worst, as it'd be both slow and finnicky.

A far simpler solution is, again, just to have a no-animation next-cast augmenter, rather than a finnicky toggle.

Or, perhaps (if XIV were to ever allow for skills that could be cast while in the middle of another animation) you could have it be a no-animation ability that instantly duplicates of your current cast, additionally ending the cast for proportionate potency (allowing for huge pre-heals). For instance, if I'd gotten 50% through my Medica cast when my Afflatus cast was registered, I'd instantly do a 150% value Medica (the 50% that'd already been progressed, plus the Afflatus).

Again, the idea is merely to save some buttons if, for some reason, the only "creativity" the devs could muster for WHM is to give an eventual Afflatus variant of every heal (or, worse, uses that added button count as excuse to then trim what tiny amount of actually interesting tools remain to us). If Afflatus heals remains just a single AoE and a single Single-target, there's no need for this.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

A far simpler solution is, again, just to have a no-animation next-cast augmenter, rather than a finnicky toggle.

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In concept that sounds fine but my only problem with that solution is in situations where you are chain casting lilies for whatever reason, rabidly jumping between the augment button and the heal button might be taxing to some, as opposed to a toggle they can flip on or off. Could just remove the animation from the toggle as well.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Or, perhaps (if XIV were to ever allow for skills that could be cast while in the middle of another animation) you could have it be a no-animation ability that instantly duplicates of your current cast, additionally ending the cast for proportionate potency (allowing for huge pre-heals). For instance, if I'd gotten 50% through my Medica cast when my Afflatus cast was registered, I'd instantly do a 150% value Medica (the 50% that'd already been progressed, plus the Afflatus).

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That would actually be a pretty neat mechanic, tho like you said I don't think XIV would ever allow that considering how the game handles latency. If it's a scaling potency based on time I can just imagine the amount of random rollbacks thrown at you when cutting around the ~75% mark lol Since half of what you're seeing isn't what's actually happening on the server.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Again, the idea is merely to save some buttons if, for some reason, the only "creativity" the devs could muster for WHM is to give an eventual Afflatus variant of every heal...

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Oh no! my idea wasn't about saving buttons at all, they definitely need more buttons without a doubt, but the topic was the lily system so I focused on that. The idea was to simply allow WHM to consistently provide damage from beginning to end in a way that fits the existing lily system. The reason WHM was relegated to honorary bench warmer for two expansions is because its kit lacked sufficient oGCD healing and utility relative to the other two. Come ShB's the only reason WHM managed to achieve some relevancy in the meta was because the lily system effectively allowed you to refund more than half your gcd heals for damage, even if at a loss. But the thing is it's still too restrictive and limiting, so much so one buff to broil and WHM already fell off the bandwagon.

The gist was that no matter if you have to use base heals or afflatus heals you will feed the blood lily, so your damage remains consistent over an encounter. Go the whole fight on just afflatus heals? get high deeps. Mess up and use some basic heals? You still get blood lilies but at a dps cost. The idea was simply to allow WHM to contribute damage even when they're forced to dip into their GCD heals, something the other two healers don't suffer from as prominently thanks to their potent oGCDs.

What if Solace refreshed the duration of Regen and Rapture refreshed the duration of Medica II, if the target had your respective HoT active? Solace and Regen have the same range, as do Rapture and Medica II.

That way, you effectively refresh Regen with Solace, with an extra heal tacked on. It kinda-sorta makes Medica II instant cast when you use Rapture, assuming you already had Medica II HoTs going, since it'd do a heal similar to Medica II and refresh the HoT component.

Often enough WHM keeps Regen on a tank most of the time, so if the tank needs a direct heal (even a small one) when Regen is almost expired, you can Solace to do both and get a Blood Lily. It's also nice to have the Medica II HoT during when there is a lot of aoe dodging, so that when somebody gets nicked by a single aoe the HoT can deal with it. Often during those times, if the Medica II HoT fades after 15 seconds, i'm still moving to dodge myself, so being able to use the instant cast Rapture to refresh the HoT's at the same time would be useful as well.

This would also had a little bit more mechanic and combo to the tool-kit, without fundamentally changing the nature of the spells when used independently, or at a lower level, presuming the above would be a Trait of some form. It'd also improve the whole "WHM is a regen-mage" theme, which isn't as strong as it once was.

Edit: And as far as refreshing goes, it can be a "Extends your X effect duration by Y seconds, up to a limit of Z seconds" on the target. So it could be tuned to be a shorter or longer bump and/or max duration. Several other classes already have this sort of mechanic, so it shouldn't be too difficult to implement.

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Originally Posted by Isharis

What if Solace refreshed the duration of Regen and Rapture refreshed the duration of Medica II, if the target had your respective HoT active? Solace and Regen have the same range, as do Rapture and Medica II.

That way, you effectively refresh Regen with Solace, with an extra heal tacked on. It kinda-sorta makes Medica II instant cast when you use Rapture, assuming you already had Medica II HoTs going, since it'd do a heal similar to Medica II and refresh the HoT component.

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That just reduces flexibility, though. After casting Regen, for instance, you lose 200 potency of healing for every 3 seconds nearer to Regen's application you cast Solace, but 1200 potency if you delay Solace to more than 18 (minus twice your ping) seconds from Regen's actuation.

That just sounds... frustrating, and very much contradictory to both the typical favorable pacing of Lily spending and the flexibility Lily heals seem meant to provide.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That just reduces flexibility, though. After casting Regen, for instance, you lose 200 potency of healing for every 3 seconds nearer to Regen's application you cast Solace, but 1200 potency if you delay Solace to more than 18 (minus twice your ping) seconds from Regen's actuation.

That just sounds... frustrating, and very much contradictory to both the typical favorable pacing of Lily spending and the flexibility Lily heals seem meant to provide.

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Solace adding duration to Regen reduces flexibility? Reduced potency? I'm not saying Solace shouldn't still heal, just extend Regen if the effect was already on the target. It would still have its normal heal regardless of whether it extended Regen or not. That sure seems like increased flexibility and increased healing potency.

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Originally Posted by Isharis

Solace adding duration to Regen reduces flexibility?

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You have tied Solace to another mechanic. Yes, that reduces its flexibility in optimized play.

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I'm not saying Solace shouldn't still heal, just extend Regen if the effect was already on the target.

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I know. That is exactly how it reduces its flexibility.

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That sure seems like increased flexibility and increased healing potency.

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Increased maximal healing potency? Yes. From 700 to at most 1700. Increased flexibility? No. Quite the opposite. To optimize Solace, you must now use it with less Regen duration left on your target than will meet the next server HoT tick.

Is that constraint really something you want to be at all balanced around? I certainly don't. It's constrictive and I don't look at WHM and think that it ought to have its potency-per-minute especially centered around buff-duration-sniping.

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Is that constraint really something you want to be at all balanced around? I certainly don't. It's constrictive and I don't look at WHM and think that it ought to have its potency-per-minute especially centered around buff-duration-sniping.

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Didn't realize we were accounting for having to make major sacrifices for any changes, though its certainly a pragmatic view. I don't see having Solace add like +10-15 seconds to a max of 30 seconds or so to an existing Regen as something so OP we would need such a significant balance adjustment. It was more about having a way to use Lily that wasn't just a wasteful dump.

Since we are assuming any changes to buff Lily's will require such balance changes, and additional mechanics are frustratingly constrictive and inflexible, it would seem the ideal solution then would be to just remove the Lily mechanic entirely. Then we wouldn't have the constrictions of having to deal with Lily charges. We would have increased flexibility and wouldn't have to be balanced around the constrictive Lily mechanic.

Just have the Afflatus spells as simple cool downs. No having to deal with dumping Lily charges just to use Misery.

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Originally Posted by Isharis

Didn't realize we were accounting for having to make major sacrifices for any changes, though its certainly a pragmatic view. I don't see having Solace add like +10-15 seconds to a max of 30 seconds or so to an existing Regen as something so OP we would need such a significant balance adjustment. It was more about having a way to use Lily that wasn't just a wasteful dump.

Since we are assuming any changes to buff Lily's will require such balance changes, and additional mechanics are frustratingly constrictive and inflexible, it would seem the ideal solution then would be to just remove the Lily mechanic entirely. Then we wouldn't have the constrictions of having to deal with Lily charges. We would have increased flexibility and wouldn't have to be balanced around the constrictive Lily mechanic.

Just have the Afflatus spells as simple cool downs. No having to deal with dumping Lily charges just to use Misery.

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If it adds ppm, it should be balanced around. It shouldn't assume perfect usage, but it should assume some.

That's largely irrelevant to the constraints of optimal play, though. Even if one's job were OP, that doesn't suddenly excuse you from playing to the best you can when in, say, Savage content.

If you could do better by using Solace in that constrained manner, that will be the expectation and thus, increasingly as one goes into increasingly stringent content, a very real constraint.

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Since we are assuming any changes to buff Lily's will require such balance changes, and additional mechanics are frustratingly constrictive and inflexible, it would seem the ideal solution then would be to just remove the Lily mechanic entirely.

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Not remotely. Consider what the present Lily spells themselves do, just by nature of being an allowance of instant casts that require no prior weave (unlike Swiftcast), and what little else provides that value (Dia, and Dia alone). Unless there is no way to weave movement or oGCDs whatsoever, weaving will be obligatory. Dia already makes it so. But now you have not only a second means of providing weave-space but also a far more flexible one, as Lily spells can be banked for up to 119 seconds' worth of uptime (just short of overcapping with 3 Lily charges held).

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Just have the Afflatus spells as simple cool downs.

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Unless they'd come with multiple charges, that'd be a downgrade to flexibility.

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No having to deal with dumping Lily charges just to use Misery.

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Then you'd have buffed WHM's maximal dps by roughly 400 ppm (which may bring down the balance hammer) without much improving their party's rDPS unless there was zero space for Lily heals to actually heal. Moreover, you'd have removed the main selling point of Lily skills via Misery -- to, effectively, refund most of the offensive potency lost to uptime spent on healing, up to 2 GCD's worth per minute.